Welcome back to the Historic Royal Palaces podcast, the podcast that tells the history and stories of our six palaces.

I'm Tracy Borman. I have the exciting new title of Chief Historian here at the Palaces.

Now, if you were to think of the foundational figures in the 1066 Conquest of England and the building of the Tower of London, I imagine

you would think immediately of William the Conquer, the man whose name looms large over this pivotal time in our history. But what of

the queen of the conqueror? The woman who held Normandy so that William could conquer England,

the mother of two Norman kings and the matriarch of the Norman dynasty.

For today's episode, I'm going to explore the life of Matilda of Flanders,

Queen of the Conqueror, and I'll be making my pitch for why I think she deserves to be seen in her own right as a foundational figure of the 1066 conquest.

Please be aware that this episode contains descriptions of sexual violence that some listeners may find distressing.

Welcome, lovely listeners. I am sitting in actually one of my favourite rooms in the Tower of London.

This is the curator's library and it's a lovely little

bolt hole. Just on the end of the Waterloo block, you can spend hours in here with nobody

finding that you're actually there at all. So it's very peaceful. It's very good for research.

And the best thing from the perspective of today's subject is that it overlooks the

white tower built by William the Conqueror in the 1070s. So the perfect place to be discussing

his remarkable consort, Matilda. Now I first became aware of Matilda's story

probably about 15 years ago when I was researching her biography.

Now, she's not the best-known woman in history.

She's probably overshadowed not just by William,

but by the Empress Matilda, who was briefly

Queen during the Civil War, waged with her cousin Stephen. But Matilda of Flanders was an altogether

different kettle of fish. She was the daughter of Count Baldwin the magnificent. He was a very

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